Edwin E. Moïse

The Myths of Tet: The Most Misunderstood Event of the Vietnam War

This book
deals with the effort of the U.S. government to present a very optimistic picture of progress in the Vietnam War during 1967,
the way this left the United States unprepared for the magnitude of the Communists' Tet Offensive in 1968, and the way these events
have been remembered and interpreted (often very inaccurately) up to the present.

Chapter 3. The Special National Intelligence Estimate (58)
Negotiating the SNIE (59)
The SNIE: Final Version (66)
The Role of the Pentagon (72)
Arguments in Defense of the MACV Estimates (73)
Publicizing the SNIE (88)
Distracting the Media (90)

Chapter 4. The Optimism Campaign (94)
The Short-Term Focus in Public Relations (103)
What Did Westmoreland Believe? (104)
Two kinds of Journalists (106)

Are the Myths Still Being Repeated?

My book discusses a variety of myths that are widespread in the literature of the Vietnam War. But which of them are still being actively
circulated? I thought it would be worth noting which of them have appeared in works that have come out since I finished writing my book.

The one that has been most conspicuous is that the United States reacted to the Tet Offensive by abandoning its effort to win the war. In fact
President Johnson responded to the Tet Offensive by escalating his use both of ground troops and of air power. He continued trying to win the war
until he left office in January 1969.

"It would require twenty-four days of terrible fighting to take the city back. The Battle of Hue would be the bloodiest of the Vietnam War,
and a turning point not just in that conflict, but in American history. When it was over, debate concerning the war in the United States
was never again about winning, only about how to leave." Mark Bowden, Hue 1968: A Turning Point of the American War in Vietnam (New York:
Atlantic Monthly Press, 2017), unnumbered page just before p. 1. The same statement appeared again, in almost the same words, on p. 519.

"The Viet Cong were depleted as a fighting force. But from tactical defeat came strategic victory. America's will had been broken." John A Farrell,
Richard Nixon: The Life (New York: Doubleday, 2017), p. 320.

Philip Brady, who had been working for USAID in Vietnam at the time of the Tet Offensive, said that Tet "broke the will of the United States
to fight that war" in the
Ken Burns/Lynn Novick documentary "The Vietnam War," episode 6, "Things Fall Apart (January-July 1968)."

"Johnson's major mistake was to de-escalate in 1968 following the Tet Offensive. Having authorized half a million American troops to be sent to
Vietnam, the commander-in-chief abandoned the effort just when
his enemy was desperate to break the stalemate, went for broke, and suffered massive losses." Tuong Vu, Vietnam's Communist Revolution:
The Power and Limits of Ideology (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017), p. 294. Pierre Asselin quoted this passage, and endorsed it, in
his book Vietnam's American War: A History (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2018), p. 164.

"Johnson's refusal to send any more reinforcements, coupled with his announced intention to reduce bombing of the North while launching peace talks,
represented a turning point in the war. There would be no more hopes of an American military victory. The only question now was the terms and pace
of withdrawal." Max Boot, The Road Not Taken: Edward Lansdale and the American Tragedy in Vietnam (New York: Liveright, 2018), p. 521.

I have seen one book that repeats the myth that the Tet Offensive was a well-coordinated wave of simultaneous attacks, throughout South Vietnam:
Doug Stanton, The Odyssey of Echo company (New York: Scribner, 2017).

"On a single night, January 31, 1968, as many as 100,000 soldiers in the North Vietnamese Army attack thirty-six cities throughout South vietnam" (front
flap of dust jacket).
"In those first predawn hours of the Tet Offensive, about 100,000 North Vietnamese regular army soldiers attacked thirty-six cities throughout
South Vietnam" (p.87).

I have also seen one example of the myth that the American media over-reacted to the Tet Offensive, treating it as a much worse disaster than it
actually was.

"Tet was decisively lost in the living-rooms of America: television-news icon Walter Cronkite declared the war lost." Harland K. Ullman,
Anatomy of Failure: Why American Loses Every War It Starts (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2017), p. 51.

Errata

p. 113: I wrote "Bloody fighting began on October 27 at Loc Ninh,..." This was not quite correct. The Communist offensive in northern III Corps
began on October 27, 1967, but at Song Be, east of Loc Ninh. Fighting actually at Loc Ninh did not begin until October 29.